How to Exercise Without Really Trying

Today, there's a multitude of exercise and diet fads to help us lose weight—but women of the 60s, as evidenced in this 1963 essay from Harper's Bazaar, were about accomplishing more with less effort. Were they on to something?

Every so often, one meets a woman "lovely in her bones"; a woman, that is, who maintains well past her first youth a figure flexible and full of grace, emanating vitality and poise; her limbs and torso are lithe as a girl's. What is her secret? One might suspect tennis weekends, and strenuous bouts of routine exercises between. But the source of her splendid fitness, you will discover, lies in the mysterious power of a steadfast mental attitude. An innate respect for the clever and beautiful body nature bequeathed her, and an abiding conviction that it's up to her to keep it at perfect pitch, animate her motions. She is, at almost every moment of the day, a living exercise.

This subliminal approach to a lovely physique is open to any woman who cares to make it her own. It can accomplish more, with less work, than all those desperate resolutions to exercise like sixty twice a day. It demands no special hours of the day be set aside, no difficult calisthenic techniques be mastered. You are merely requires to think. And this thinking should lead to an inner directive: Don't make a move that isn't an exercise.

Each one of us, every day, performs hundreds of motions that are inherent opportunities to gain in limberness, firmness and grace, to flatten bumps and bulges. Never let one knock at your door unanswered. Never save steps, when all are in the right direction. Never ride an elevator when a flight of stairs offers you a therapeutic climb. Welcome every chance to stoop over—holding the stomach muscles drawn in, and swinging down to the floor from the groin, knees straight.

When you turn to look at something, turn your head with purpose and grace, and hold it high. When you walk, walk tall, your rib cage lifted up away from your hipbones, your waist an elongated pivot, and swing your legs freely from the hip joints. When you sit down, sit down with forethought, slinging the hips and buttocks under, like a fencer, then bending springily into the knees to bring the thigh muscles into the play. When you reach for anything, make it count, letting the motion come straight from the solar plexus and extend through the shoulder and arm out to the tips of your out-stretching fingers.

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All these are practically built-in calisthenics. To supplement them, seize on any hiatus that opens up throughout the day to practice a little instant exercising.

Right now, for instance, as you're reading: Press the whole length of your spine against the chair and stretch up tall. Raise your chest muscles by lifting your upper arms—alternatively tensing and relaxing. Clench and release your fingers and toes, to increase their flexibility and shapeliness and, at the same time, stir up your circulation. Relax, now, and breathe deeply four or five times. Whenever you're reading, in fact, or sitting at your desk over bills, take an odd moment to repeat this routine. It will heighten your physical tone, and refresh you.

In bed in the Morning: Concentrate on stretching every muscle. Then raise your knees to your chest and straighten and strengthen the spine by pressing it into the bed. Roll over on your side, knees still flexed—swing yourself up and out of bed.

Before Dressing:Grip the bureau and sit into a deep knee bend. Holding sides of door jambs, lean into the doorway, pressing buttocks into space. Lean into the corner of the room, holding hands on walls at the sides; push bosom into the corner—and release. (Do each exercise eight times.)

Before Making-Up: Make faces in the mirror: roll your eyes, wiggle your forehead, waggle your ears' drop your head all the way back and push your chin out as far as you can.

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At the Breakfast Table: Think about flattening the abdomen. Pull the muscles taut, away from the table, then release. Contract and relax eight times, with raised rib cage.

On Your Way Out: Walk briskly. Remember to swing legs from your hips. Roll your feet as you walk, from the heel to the side, and then from the ball of the foot to toes. Keep buttocks firm, ribs lifted and pelvis slightly forward.

Waiting (for a cab, at the doctor's office, et cetera): Pull your arches up from the floor. Do all the toe and finger movements. Mold and knead the palms of your hands.

In the Car or Cab: Press your spine back against the seat and then arch your lower back. Think of developing grace and agility. Rock back and forward, As you get up and out, turn sideways and swing your knees out the door, pressing your buttocks into your thighs.

At your Desk: No one will notice leg and knee exercises. Swing and rotate. Kick legs forward, from knees. Rotate thighs in hip joints, so that they turn outside. When your phone rings, take a deep breath, and exhale. Lift the receiver with a flick of the wrist. Try it with your left hand as well as your right.

In the Elevator, if you're alone:Slide your head forward and back, keeping your neck straight—a good tension easer. Stand with feet straight and slightly apart; tuck end of spine under, tilt pelvis forward, lift rib cage and hold stomach flat. Now, rotate inside of knees and outward. Relax. Repeat two or three times. (A fine way to correct posture and firm the buttocks and thighs.)

In a Restaurant: Under the table, press palms of hands together, one palm resisting the other. Pay attention to the action in the upper arm and pectoral muscles. A little movement produces wonderful results.

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At the hairdresser: Rotate wrists and ankles. While under the dryer, move your rib cage, first up, then from side to side, twelve times. Rock shoulder forward and back.

Climbing Stairs:Look for steps to climb. Then do it right. Swing leg to step, press buttocks into thighs as, ascending or descending, you lift or lower yourself. Hips and buttocks can be firmed and toned—while you walk.

At Home: Look for opportunity to push, pull or reach for objects. Stoop by bending from the groin. Double over, keep your knees and back of thighs tightened; or bend your knees and sit into them, swinging the hips under.

In the Tub: Deep breathe and let yourself utterly relax…. Sit up, drop head forward, then let it fall back. Chew. Then turn and drop chin to shoulder, side to side…. When you dry yourself, do a vigorous "twist"; then bend and rotate form your waistline, eight times from left to right and reverse.

Watching TV: Sit in a chair or hassock. Bring knees to chest, clasp hands around knees and hold. Stretch legs out straight and long, and then repeat from the beginning…. Roll shoulders back, down and around—first on one side, then the other…. Massage fingers, flex your wrists.

And So To Bed: Recline and take a deep breath. Muscle by muscle, from your crown to your toes, d-r-o-p. Chose your eyes and visualize an ideal image of yourself.

Attempting this uncommon approach to exercise—not as something set apart, but as an instinctive moment-to-moment reflex—may at the outset make you feel self-centered and self-conscious. But try your wings. Think, yourself, of new ways to move. Dramatize your motions however you wish. If you keep in your mind's eye an undistracted vision of how, ideally, you ought to look, and want to look; if you undertake with conviction this constant, watchful, disciplined use of the muscles, your self-consciousness will soon disappear. You actually will exercise without really trying; it will become second nature, unaffected as breathing.

Physiologists say that thought generates chemical and electrical messages through the glands and the brain. Psychologists and psychiatrists have found that tissue can be changed by our emotions and ideas. We know that we are not segmented beings, that our physical and intellectual elements are interrelated and interactionary. So set your star by, put your mind on, place your faith in, your own physical perfecting.

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